Earlier this week, my organization was blindsided by the news that 2500 journals were being withdrawn from access using HINARI. For anyone unfamiliar with HINARI, it is an acronym for Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initative. This was established by the World Health Organization to grant access to free or low cost biomedical and health […]
Category: Columnists
Martin McShane: Take me to your leader
There are a number of variants on the cartoon about an alien asking someone or something to “take me to your leader.” Of course we all laugh because we can see the alien doesn’t realise they are approaching the wrong person or thing. Now, there is a new version being played out between PCTs and […]
Richard Smith: How to stop the medical arms race?
Growth in spend on healthcare grew faster than growth in the gross domestic product in every OECD country between 2000 and 2008. That’s the main reason why every country, including Britain, is trying some form of health reform. The growth in spend on healthcare is unsustainable, and, as I’ve joked before, the US may be […]
Liz Wager: Does the Wakefield et al case mean we should demand public access to raw data?
The latest chapter in the sad saga of the Wakefield et al paper on the MMR vaccine raises some difficult questions about access to individual patient data. It is possible that the apparent discrepancies between the patient records and the publication might have come to light a whole lot sooner, perhaps even before publication, if […]
James Raftery: What does “value based pricing” mean for NICE?
The “value based pricing” consultation paper” makes the following relevant references to the future of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). […]
Richard Smith: Will we follow Easter Islanders into extinction?
What contrary creatures we humans are. I begin the year convinced that our civilisation will collapse soon but at the same time enjoying the continuous Mozart on Radio 3, abandoning alcohol for the month with enthusiasm, and committing myself to three runs and 70 000 steps a week. As my wife, who also thinks that […]
James Raftery: Value based pricing – the consultation paper
The publication of the Department of Health’s consultation paper on value based pricing and the ongoing consultation on the Cancer Drugs Fund plus each consultation’s accompanying impact assessment mean that it is now possible to see what is being proposed. This blog looks at the essentials of value based pricing; later blogs will deal with […]
Richard Smith: Medicine’s need for the humanities
I spoke as well at the meeting on valuing the humanities at the London School of Economics (see blog below), and I argued that medicine needs the humanities badly. The NHS and overseas aid are the only budgets that have been protected by the coalition government, and universities, particularly the teaching of humanities, have been […]
Richard Smith: Battling the assault on the humanities
Having decided that higher education is no longer a public good, the coalition government has cut completely the funding for teaching the humanities. This is a desperately short sighted move, and at a meeting at the London School of Economics just before Christmas speakers spelt out the value of the humanities. Some training in the […]
Liz Wager: Can we immunise Brazilian science against fraud?
I’m in Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, on the last leg of BRISPE 1 – the First Brazilian meeting on Research Integrity, Science & Publication Ethics, which started in Rio de Janeiro last week. Brazilian science is, apparently, booming. A recent article in Science described it as “riding a gusher.” An astrophysicist […]